Tag Archives: Industry

New German Weapons Export Law That Won’t Actually Change Anything Now In The Works

December 27, 2021 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It won’t change anything but it will make us feel good about ourselves.

Compare the weapons export numbers for Germany this year with the numbers this time next year if you don’t believe me. Just have patience. Seen it a dozen times. It’s a recurring, calming ritual Germans like to perform. They seem to believe it reinforces their moral superpower status.

Germany: Baerbock vows new law to curb weapons exports – German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said new weapons export control legislation is in the works. During its last few days in power, Angela Merkel’s administration approved almost €5 billion in arms sales…

Together with the United States, Russia, and France, Germany is one of the world’s biggest arms exporters, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

It’s Called Bürokratie

June 22, 2021 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Or bureaucracy, if you prefer. That’s what’s happening to Tesla’s German gigafactory.

Nobody does it better, or worse, than the Germans.

Explainer: What’s happening with Tesla’s $7 billion German ‘gigafactory’?

Next Thursday, July 1, was supposed to be a day of celebration for Tesla: the opening of its self-styled “gigafactory” in the tranquil German municipality of Gruenheide, just outside Berlin.

But thanks to fierce environmental resistance, red tape and planning tweaks it is completely unclear when the first vehicles will roll off the production line of the electric carmaker’s first European factory.

Tesla has already pushed back the expected opening to late 2021. Yet the environmental agency in Brandenburg, the state where the 5.8 billion euro ($6.9 billion) plant is being built, has still not given final approval – meaning a further delay cannot be ruled out, even into 2022.

Everything Is Going As Planned, Tesla

May 3, 2021 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Maybe not as you planned, but still.

This is only the first official delay. The best is yet to come (think Berlin’s BER Airport). You picked the wrong country, Elon.

Tesla’s Berlin gigafactory to be delayed another 6 months: report – The German trade magazine Automobilwoche reported Sunday that production will not begin before the end of January 2022, and that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk officially gave approval for the six-month delay.

Can’t Reach The Current Planned Level Of Carbon Emission Reduction?

September 17, 2020 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hype, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I know. Let’s introduce an even higher and more unrealistic new level of carbon emission reduction we can’t reach!

Uschi

Then everybody’s happy. Except those folks who still have to live in the real world.

German industry sceptical of EU’s new 2030 climate goals – The European Commission will present today (17 September) detailed proposals to reduce carbon emissions in the EU by 55% below 1990 levels by 2030. While German industry officially welcomes the new ambitions, it is also clearly sceptical.

The increase of the current target for 2030 by a further 15% would mean a roughly fivefold increase in the efforts of the 27 EU member states, BDI President Dieter Kempf emphasised at the beginning of his speech.

And according to BDI calculations, Germany alone would have to invest €2.3 trillion to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. “You can work out who of the other 26 countries can afford to do this. The level of ambition not only differs greatly within the EU, but also globally,” said Kempf.

 

Save The Trees – And The German Automobile Industry!

September 3, 2020 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Too late for the later, I think.

Trees

Germany Promises Elon Musk Whatever He Needs For Tesla Berlin Plant – The factory, under construction, would be Tesla’s first European car plant, and could employ an estimated 12,000 people, making as many as 500,000 cars a year. The factory is slated to start production in summer 2021, an aggressive timetable for a car plant…

Locals have complained that trees were cut down for the factory and that it’s being built in a region with scarce water resources, but construction has progressed relatively smoothly so far.

“We are very proud of your car plant in Brandenburg and we wish you good luck with that. You’ll have every assistance you need.”

But Isn’t Everybody In Sweden Dead By Now?

August 7, 2020 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How could their economy be in relatively good shape? They were BAD (compared to head of the class Germany) because they didn’t do that COVID-19 lockdown thing. I don’t understand.

Sweden

The 18 members of the DAX 30 index of Germany’s biggest firms that have already reported swung from a healthy profit in the second quarter of 2019 to a loss almost as big this year. For many companies, including Volkswagen, a giant carmaker, and BASF, the world’s biggest chemicals concern, results were even worse than analysts had expected. The income of the 27 Swedish firms in Stockholm’s OMX 30 that have reported so far fell by 49%, bad but much better than the DAX. If you include adjusted earnings of two opaque investment vehicles in the OMX, income actually rose…

In public, CEOs of big German companies generally praised their government’s tougher policies. Privately, though, some shared the fears expressed openly by the BVMW, the association of Mittelstand firms that represents 3.5m businesses with up to 250 employees. In an open letter in May the BVMW called on the government to lift the lockdown “before it is too late” and criticised it for lacking an exit strategy.

The Decline and Fall of the German Empire

July 9, 2020 By in Hard Facts, Heconomy, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The German Automobile Empire.

Cars

Could 400,000 car industry jobs in Germany be lost? – The car industry is in apparent decline in Germany. Some estimates predict that half its 800,000 jobs will be gone by 2030. The industry disagrees with that estimate, but the road ahead looks bumpy.

“The production of electric vehicles can be automated more easily. If there is no improvement in the competitive position of the German industry in the area of electromobility in the next few years, and if the need for imports of battery cells and electric vehicles continues to grow in light of the launch of electromobility, employment structures will be severely hit.”

Just Say No

July 5, 2020 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hysteria Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

No, not no to drugs. Just say no to energy. Electricity was yesterday.

Energy

No nuclear energy, no coal energy. Not much sun either for solar energy. There’s lots of wind in Germany, though. Hot air mostly but still.

Germany is first major economy to phase out coal and nuclear – German lawmakers have finalized the country’s long-awaited phase-out of coal as an energy source, backing a plan that environmental groups say isn’t ambitious enough and free marketeers criticize as a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Bills approved by both houses of parliament Friday envision shutting down the last coal-fired power plant by 2038 and spending some 40 billion euros ($45 billion) to help affected regions cope with the transition.

The plan is part of Germany’s ‘energy transition’ – an effort to wean Europe’s biggest economy off planet-warming fossil fuels and generate all of the country’s considerable energy needs from renewable sources. Achieving that goal is made harder than in comparable countries such as France and Britain because of Germany’s existing commitment to also phase out nuclear power by the end of 2022.

Where On Earth Did I Put That €1.9 Billion?

June 22, 2020 By in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Humility, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I didn’t leave it in my other wallet now, did I?

Wirecard

Remember when Germany used to have that squeaky-clean image? Yeah. Me neither. Now Wirecard has stepped up to the plate.

German payments firm Wirecard says missing €1.9bn may not exist – Company thought money was in two Asian banks but search hits dead end in Philippines.

“The management board of Wirecard assesses on the basis of further examination that there is a prevailing likelihood that the bank trust account balances in the amount of €1.9bn do not exist.”